cci2012 Archives - Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources

Building on the licensing agreement they already have with The Tranformers and G.I. Joe, it’s no surprise to learn that IDW Publishing will publish comics based on Hasbro’s My Little Pony toy line.

“My Little Pony is a highly successful brand and we’re incredibly excited to have the opportunity to extend the franchise through this collaboration with Hasbro,” IDW CEO and Publisher Ted Adams said in a press release. “We look forward to providing new stories for the fans and launching their favorite ponies into comic book form.”

The series will be based on characters from the animated program My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and will be written by Gronk creator Katie Cook with art by Andy Price.

“A MASSIVE kudos to Katie, as she suggested me for the art chores on the book,” Price said on his DeviantArt page. “We have great goodies planned, and for both of us this is a labor of love, as we are both Bronies

The series starts in November and will “stay true to its moral foundation, while providing themes and subject matter that older audiences can also appreciate,” according to the release. The series will feature covers by Jill Thompson, Stephanie Buscema and more.

Canadian graphic novel publisher Drawn & Quarterly announced Thursday that it will publish Michael DeForge’s Ant Colony, which DeForge has been serializing on his website since last fall.

“Michael DeForge is one of those rare talents who emerge, out of the blue, with a fully formed and singularly unique vision,” said Chris Oliveros, D+Q’s acquiring editor and publisher. “When I look at his work I sometimes wonder how it was formed, and then I think I can see the influences of several disparate cartoonists over the years, from Mark Beyer through Marc Bell. But ultimately DeForge’s work can’t be pinned down so easily; his striking visual sensibility and peculiar sense of humor is entirely his own.”

For more information on the deal, check out this interview with DeForge by Tom Spurgeon.

Thursday may have started a bit slow in the news department, but it sure ended with a huge bang. Here’s a roundup of announcements that hit today from Comic-Con International in San Diego:

• Neil Gaiman announced via video that he will write a new Sandman miniseries that will detail what happened to Morpheus to allow him to be so easily captured in The Sandman #1. J.H. Williams III will provide the art. “It was a story that we discussed telling for Sandman‘s 20th anniversary,” Gaiman said, “but the time got away from us. And now, with Sandman‘s 25th anniversary year coming up, I’m delighted, and nervous, that that story is finally going to be told.” The series will be published by Vertigo sometime next year.

The next big thing for the Red Hulk, apparently, is to hand his book over to his daughter. As announced at Marvel’s Next Big Thing panel at Comic-Con today, the Jeff Parker-written Hulk series will turn into Red She-Hulk with issue #58.

The name and character shift follows on the heals of another comic written by Parker that recently changed its name and cast, the comic formerly known as Thunderbolts and now known as Dark Avengers. Parker told MTV Geek that the new status quo “will grow out of some ideas we were exploring in Hulk.”

Parker added “She may be the first Hulk who isn’t just angry, but is righteously angry and chooses to AIM her anger. She doesn’t resent her human side, she still thinks of herself as the same person when she transforms, like her father. But her Hulk form has no inhibitions or worries that she might be doing the wrong thing. Red She-Hulk acts upon what she wants, usually as soon as the idea or emotion hits her.”

No word on what happens to the Red Hulk, beyond “his expertise is required in another place.”

James Patterson’s Zoo hasn’t even been released yet, but Yen Press already has a graphic novel adaptation of it in the works. Andy MacDonald revealed on his blog last night that he’s been working on it, and Yen Press is showing off promotional materials for it at its booth at Comic-Con International in San Diego. According to the description on Patterson’s website, Zoo is about:

All over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear.

With the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it’s too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide. With wildly inventive imagination and white-knuckle suspense that rivals Stephen King at his very best, James Patterson’s ZOO is an epic, non-stop thrill-ride from “One of the best of the best.” (TIME)

Yen Press has published several graphic novel adaptations of Patterson’s books aimed at younger readers, including Maximum Ride and Daniel X, but I believe this is the first “adult” book of his the company will adapt. According to Amazon, it comes out in November, two months after the prose novel.

Comic-Con International in San Diego may officially open today (last night was Preview Night), but the news has been rolling in for awhile. So let’s take a look at what’s been announced thus far.

• Of course you can’t have Comic-Con without news about Comic-Con itself. CBR’s Kiel Phegley spoke with CCI’s David Glanzer about the show, while Ryan Ingram spoke with Scott Morse about the Tr!ckster satellite event. And it seems like every non-comics media outlet reports on the show in some form or fashion; here’s an article by The Christian Post about religion and the show, for example. And finally, Tuesday brought the tragic news that a con attendee camping out for today’s Twilight panel was killed in front of the convention center after being struck by a car.

• I’m not 100 percent sure if it qualifies as Comic-Con news, but since it was officially announced in the Entertainment Weekly Comic-Con issue, let’s just go with it. Marvel’s big news going into the Con is that they plan to relaunch several titles later this year as part of “Marvel NOW!” Their recently released solicitations reveal they plan to cancel nine titles in October, but of course you can expect many if not all of them to come back in some form or fashion as Marvel NOW! rolls out.

As a part of a “new media company” that will produce stories for movies, TV, digital series and more, J. Michael Straczynski will relaunch his “Joe’s Comics” imprint next spring at Image Comics.

As reported by Deadline, Straczynski will revive the imprint that Top Cow once published circa 2000-2004, which brought us Delicate Creatures, Midnight Nation and Rising Stars. The first four comics that will appear under the imprint include Falling Angel, Ten Grand, Guardians and Sidekick.

Joe’s Comics is one piece of Studio JMS, which has film and digital media projects in the works, including a film called The Flickering Light and a web series for MTV titled The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al. On the TV front, JMS has two projects in the works–Vlad Dracula for Starz and one called Epidemic.

“The center of the storm is what comes out of my keyboard,” he told Deadline. “It’s all about creating IP. For 20 years, I’ve had the remarkable good fortune to work successfully as a writer and producer in a wide variety of fields, from television to comics and movies. I’ve always dreamed of creating a mini-studio where I can put all of that work under one roof, telling stories that I want to tell and which can be spun up between various platforms: comics that can become TV shows, TV shows that can become movies, and movies that can become comics. With the tremendous recent success of films such as The Avengers, Thor and the Batman series of films, this feels like the best time to tackle that dream. Best of all, unlike many other start-up ventures, I’m not looking to get into these areas, I’m already working in them; now it’s just a matter of taking the next logical step: consolidation.”

Here’s one of the spoils of being lucky enough to land a ticket to Comic-Con this year–Mondo will sell this exclusive The Dark Knight Rises poster at their booth Thursday. Designed by Jock, it can only be purchases at booth #437, and to find out when excatly it’ll go on sale, you have to follow Mondo’s Twitter feed, @MondoNews.

The posters are limited in number to 375 and cost $50. No doubt they’ll be up on eBay sometime tomorrow for a lot more than that.

The cast of Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows is ready for Comic-Con International in typical cheesecake fashion, as the crew sports the outfits of a certain popular science-fiction franchise from the 1960s.

“It was interesting to see all the details on the costumes and the props while studying the reference photos,” Cho wrote on his blog. “I couldn’t believe how simple and crude the captain’s chair was. I just cracked up looking at all the 1960’s beehive hair-dos on the female cast. Talk about walking down memory lane. Despite the shoe-string budget and the dated look, Star Trek still told great emotional and entertaining stories. And this print is my nod to that great classic show. Live Long and Prosper.”

Colored by Brandon Peterson, the print is limited to 250 copies and costs $20. It’s available at booth #4907, the Big Wow Art booth.

Rock band Coldplay and Bongo Comics have teamed up to tell the story of Mylo Xyloto, the title character from their fifth studio album that was released last October. While the six-issue series doesn’t officially come out until next February, Bongo will have the first issue available at Comic-Con International this week with a variant cover.

The story of Mylo Xyloto was conceived and written by Coldplay alongside Academy Award-nominated writer and director Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie). The band posted on their website:

3 years ago we had an idea with our friend mark osborne about a character called mylo xyloto (“xylo” as in xylophone, “to” as in toe). gradually mylo’s story and universe came together and this ended up providing the backdrop for the album and tour. now we’re proud to announce that early next year the story’s going to come out as a 6-part comic. and to kick things off mark’s going to be holding a panel at comic con in san diego this week. so if you’re there you can ask him ‘who’s major minus?’ and ‘what the hell’s the hypnofeed all about?’ we hope you like it. it was fun making it.

KISS frontman, reality star and licensing entrepreneur Gene Simmons is no stranger to comics, having fought Doctor Doom and teamed up with Howard the Duck back in the 1970s. More recently, the band has appeared in comics published by IDW Publishing and Archie.

USA Today reports that Arcana will have 200 copies of his new Simmons Comics Anthology book at Comic-Con International, where Simmons will be “on hand to debut exclusive art and talk to fans about the three properties that are the beginning of his comic-book universe.” The anthology reprints the first issues of Zipper, a “leather-clad reluctant hero;” Dominatrix, a “CIA meets T&A” heroine; and a Gene Simmons House of Horrors tale. According to a press release, it also includes the first chapter of the all-new crossover event, “The Slave Trade,” where Zipper and Dominatrix will face off against each other.

Simmons says the plan is to release the comics bi-monthly, and, of course, to license and merchandise them into T-shirts, Bobbleheads and more. Simmons will be doing a book signing on Friday, July 13 at 2 p.m. at Arcana Comics Booth #2415. Fans will get the chance to meet Gene and get their photo taken with real-life versions of Dominatrix and Zipper.

Love and Rockets is celebrating its 30th anniversary at Comic-Con International in San Diego, and to help fans mark the occasion in style, Fantagraphics partnered with Graphitti Designs to offer six new T-shirts featuring characters created by the legendary Hernandez Brothers. The shirts, which cost $18.99 each, can be found at the Fantagraphics booth (#1718-1722).

But wait, there’s more — Fantagraphics and the Hernandez Brothers also will debut three new books at the show. First up is the newest work by Gilbert and Jaime, Love & Rockets New Stories #5, featuring Gilbert’s return to Palomar and Jaime’s much-anticipated follow-up to “The Love Bunglers” (from #4). Also debuting is God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, Jaime’s superhero epic combining material from Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 and #2 plus 30 all-new pages. Comic-Con also hails the release of Gilbert’s children-focused graphic novel,The Adventures of Venus, which we recently previewed on Robot 6. You can also expect a Love and Rockets-related announcement Saturday at the “30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets” panel.

A second Walking Dead Compendium will arrive just in time for Halloween and, of course, the next season of AMC’s The Walking Dead TV series. The massive volume, collecting issues #49-96 of the Walking Dead comic book, arrives Oct. 3 and retails for $59.99.

Robert Kirkman told USA Today it’s his favorite format for the comic. “It’s just such a big, huge book that really offers a lot of bang for your buck,” he said. “The idea of having Volume 1 and 2 sitting next to each other on a reinforced shelf really excites me.”

Like its predecessor, it collects eight trade paperbacks into one 1,068-page volume. It also sports a similar cover to the first volume, featuring the main characters at the top and “zombiefied” mirror images of them below.

Check out the full cover by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn after the jump.

Indiegogo works a lot like Kickstarter: You contribute money toward a particular project and get back some kind of reward based on how much you pledged. The Tr!ckster folks are offering some fairly unique incentives that stem from the creator-centric ideas behind the event itself. These include opportunities to brainstorm, get feedback from, and even co-create with, the likes of B. Clay Moore, Doug TenNapel and Steve Niles. For instance, for $300, you can choose a cocktail hour/working session with Ivan Brandon and Eric Canete, who will help you brainstorm and offer feedback over booze. And for $750, Niles will actually co-write a 22-page comic with you. If you’re serious about becoming a comic book creator and have the money to spend, this is a pretty great opportunity. And if you aren’t interested in the creator incentives, they’re also offering things like Tr!ckster T-shirts and a Mike Mignola print.

Tr!ckster 2012 will be held July 11-13 at Wine Steals/Proper, a paired restaurant/pub on J Street in San Diego.